We have noted that the entire school system all the way from Kindergarten through college is coming under more scrutiny today than during anytime in our lives, and that is a long time. This scrutiny by many parents and watchdog groups is due to a concern that children are being taught social concepts that are contrary to that of the parents. This becomes serious when the child has to review what was learned in school on any day; a review which precipitates some corrective teaching by the parent. We know this happens because more than one mother has told us of the routine of review what was taught in today's class. Think of the stress that this contest between that which the teacher professes and what the parents then correct sets up in the child's mind. Makes one wonder if social concepts should be taught in school at all. There are other reasons for the increased scrutiny, but these seem to be overshadowed by the one mentioned. These other two are: (a) the cost to teach a student for one year keeps rising faster than inflation primarily because more of the school system consists of non instructional processes and facilities, much of it all related to the first issue of social concepts teaching. The other is (b) children are not being adequately prepared to fulfil the role of a citizen in their adulthood. Because social concepts teaching has entered the curriculum, something must leave and what appears to have been tossed asides is American history and civics; necessary to instill in young people the role they need to play as adult citizens. Freedom, after all, is not free; citizens have responsibilities.
Coincidentally we came upon an opinion article in 10/13-19/21 issue of the Epoch Times by James Sale titled How Can We Best Educate Our Children?. Anyone reading this article can let their mind translate the concepts in his writing into how they would answer the question in the title. We did that and and found that it introduced some renewed thinking on the subject.
Our first thought was a recalled concept that we have held all our lives. It simply says, never stop learning. We then tried to link that idea with the idea of how do we educate? Sure, there is some memorization involved in education, such as the alphabet and multiplication tables but that is only a minor part. Others would chime in and say that education has to be fun. We would not agree with that as a general concept although fun is useful sometimes as a catalyst to learning. Somehow, we need to replace the concept of fun in teaching to one of creating a love for topics.
What is and should be important in the education of young people should be to create a strong thirst for discovery and the life-long attachment to that discovery. Education must not be merely the teaching of information, because that is always shifting, but education should create the desire to find new information on new topics. And most important, this is not a one size fits all matter. Some children lean toward art, history, literature, etc. while others are more naturally fitted to science and math and engineering. But, within these areas the purpose of education is to create that thirst to learn about these areas, be they what they may be.
Another problem is that the role of the parent has slowly eroded over the last few decades. Both parents working, day care centers, school starting earlier as in pre-K all tend to take away the role of the parent in education and entrusting it to the local school board. This has to eat away at the concept that each child is different, a dimension that is best addressed by the parent, as they should know their child better than any detached organization.
We can recall that parents held the belief that they had to prepare their child to enter school and be ready to learn. We knew how to read before we started public school. Probably not a widespread concept today.
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